ITT: People think it's okay that the average Division I football coach gets nearly a million dollars a year (all making it easier for the Athletic Director and the School President to pay themselves more) because the players all get non-guaranteed scholarships, some of which even entitle student-athletes to the high educational standards of the Southeastern Conference. Because "Republicans like watching rich white dudes boss around poor black kids", or "IT WILL DESTROY THA SYSTEM", or something.

Is there really a chance that those lawsuits cold hold up in court? I mean, none of the NCAA-related games (including the old college basketball ones) ever used player names, and if I remember right they used pretty generic body types and faces. How much a chance would the former players have of winning?

Incorrigible Astronaut:Is there really a chance that those lawsuits cold hold up in court? I mean, none of the NCAA-related games (including the old college basketball ones) ever used player names, and if I remember right they used pretty generic body types and faces. How much a chance would the former players have of winning?

Incorrigible Astronaut:Is there really a chance that those lawsuits cold hold up in court? I mean, none of the NCAA-related games (including the old college basketball ones) ever used player names, and if I remember right they used pretty generic body types and faces. How much a chance would the former players have of winning?

While the older games only kinda looked like them, the NCAA games nowadays look exactly like their real-life counterparts in everything but the name. Well except for Northwesterns' QB who, for some reason, was changed from a black guy to a ginger.

But I don't think the former players have much of a chance. NCAA's lawyers combed through that agreement multiple times. I wouldn't be surprised if the former player's lawyers were shocked that the NCAA is taking them to court instead of settling behind closed doors.

Incorrigible Astronaut:Is there really a chance that those lawsuits cold hold up in court? I mean, none of the NCAA-related games (including the old college basketball ones) ever used player names, and if I remember right they used pretty generic body types and faces. How much a chance would the former players have of winning?

Aren't the player metrics set to reflect the performance of the actual players at each position?

brap:Incorrigible Astronaut: Is there really a chance that those lawsuits cold hold up in court? I mean, none of the NCAA-related games (including the old college basketball ones) ever used player names, and if I remember right they used pretty generic body types and faces. How much a chance would the former players have of winning?

Aren't the player metrics set to reflect the performance of the actual players at each position?

That's why I'm asking- I haven't played the series since 2004, so I don't know how close it is now.

Incorrigible Astronaut:Is there really a chance that those lawsuits cold hold up in court? I mean, none of the NCAA-related games (including the old college basketball ones) ever used player names, and if I remember right they used pretty generic body types and faces. How much a chance would the former players have of winning?

Any of those players who took a scholarship, plus the tens of thousands in cash payments that come with them, likely have no chance in hell at getting anything. Players who were walk-ons, though, and played for free? Yeah, they didn't receive any compensation so they could have a case.

Just pay the goddamn players already. And set up special sports colleges to send them to. Stop perpetuating this farce that they're attending college for anything other than playing sports and free up some space for serious students who actually want to learn something.

xalres:Just pay the goddamn players already. And set up special sports colleges to send them to. Stop perpetuating this farce that they're attending college for anything other than playing sports and free up some space for serious students who actually want to learn something.

They've been paying them for years. Where have you been? They call it a "Housing Allotment" and it works out to around $10,000 to $12,000 a year in cash payments (some schools pay more, some pay less, but it's indexed based on the cost of living in the area). Students can use it for whatever they want. There's no restrictions, no reporting requirements, they just get a check cut form the University (or, most likely, direct-deposited in their bank account). Bonus for the student-athlete is that they're not taxable.

Gosh, what a shame. Having actual players' names and likenesses on multi-million-dollar games was really helping the NCAA promote athleticism, character development, and the amateur sports ideal. Y'know, like they do.

xalres:Just pay the goddamn players already. And set up special sports colleges to send them to. Stop perpetuating this farce that they're attending college for anything other than playing sports and free up some space for serious students who actually want to learn something.

Hahahahaha. Ohh wait, you're serious?

Football is extremely profitable for colleges/universities. Hell the University of Texas made over $77 million in profit (103.8M revenue - $25.9M expenditures).

scottydoesntknow:xalres: Just pay the goddamn players already. And set up special sports colleges to send them to. Stop perpetuating this farce that they're attending college for anything other than playing sports and free up some space for serious students who actually want to learn something.

Hahahahaha. Ohh wait, you're serious?

Football is extremely profitable for colleges/universities. Hell the University of Texas made over $77 million in profit (103.8M revenue - $25.9M expenditures).

Can you tell me what the profit margin was for, say, the bottom half Div 1 FBS football programs? Or bottom 85 or so Div1 FBS athletic programs were?

Who should I sue about getting more schools (back) on NCAA football? Less than a decade ago, on an older generation system, NCAA football offered a ton of schools - it used to be a lot of fun to take a Williams College or a William & Mary and run the table with them. The game even did a great job of making the stadiums, even at these small schools, look just as they do IRL.For whatever reason in the past few years they've dramatically reduced content & added increasingly cartoonish physics.

Fightin' Helmfish:Who should I sue about getting more schools (back) on NCAA football? Less than a decade ago, on an older generation system, NCAA football offered a ton of schools - it used to be a lot of fun to take a Williams College or a William & Mary and run the table with them. The game even did a great job of making the stadiums, even at these small schools, look just as they do IRL.For whatever reason in the past few years they've dramatically reduced content & added increasingly cartoonish physics.

They also used to have fight songs and more fun "fluff" like that. Nowadays the entire franchise is based around the ESPN affiliation and Road to Glory sucking up half the space on the disc.

brap:Incorrigible Astronaut: Is there really a chance that those lawsuits cold hold up in court? I mean, none of the NCAA-related games (including the old college basketball ones) ever used player names, and if I remember right they used pretty generic body types and faces. How much a chance would the former players have of winning?

Aren't the player metrics set to reflect the performance of the actual players at each position?

I remember discovering what a badass Crowell was at WR after watching this anonymous character put up sick numbers

meanmutton:scottydoesntknow: xalres: Just pay the goddamn players already. And set up special sports colleges to send them to. Stop perpetuating this farce that they're attending college for anything other than playing sports and free up some space for serious students who actually want to learn something.

Hahahahaha. Ohh wait, you're serious?

Football is extremely profitable for colleges/universities. Hell the University of Texas made over $77 million in profit (103.8M revenue - $25.9M expenditures).

Can you tell me what the profit margin was for, say, the bottom half Div 1 FBS football programs? Or bottom 85 or so Div1 FBS athletic programs were?

last I heard the majority of college football programs cost more for the college than they bring in.

ModernPrimitive01:meanmutton: scottydoesntknow: xalres: Just pay the goddamn players already. And set up special sports colleges to send them to. Stop perpetuating this farce that they're attending college for anything other than playing sports and free up some space for serious students who actually want to learn something.

Hahahahaha. Ohh wait, you're serious?

Football is extremely profitable for colleges/universities. Hell the University of Texas made over $77 million in profit (103.8M revenue - $25.9M expenditures).

Can you tell me what the profit margin was for, say, the bottom half Div 1 FBS football programs? Or bottom 85 or so Div1 FBS athletic programs were?

last I heard the majority of college football programs cost more for the college than they bring in.

meanmutton:scottydoesntknow: xalres: Just pay the goddamn players already. And set up special sports colleges to send them to. Stop perpetuating this farce that they're attending college for anything other than playing sports and free up some space for serious students who actually want to learn something.

Hahahahaha. Ohh wait, you're serious?

Football is extremely profitable for colleges/universities. Hell the University of Texas made over $77 million in profit (103.8M revenue - $25.9M expenditures).

Can you tell me what the profit margin was for, say, the bottom half Div 1 FBS football programs? Or bottom 85 or so Div1 FBS athletic programs were?

FunkyBlue:ModernPrimitive01: meanmutton: scottydoesntknow: xalres: Just pay the goddamn players already. And set up special sports colleges to send them to. Stop perpetuating this farce that they're attending college for anything other than playing sports and free up some space for serious students who actually want to learn something.

Hahahahaha. Ohh wait, you're serious?

Football is extremely profitable for colleges/universities. Hell the University of Texas made over $77 million in profit (103.8M revenue - $25.9M expenditures).

Can you tell me what the profit margin was for, say, the bottom half Div 1 FBS football programs? Or bottom 85 or so Div1 FBS athletic programs were?

last I heard the majority of college football programs cost more for the college than they bring in.

scottydoesntknow:xalres: Just pay the goddamn players already. And set up special sports colleges to send them to. Stop perpetuating this farce that they're attending college for anything other than playing sports and free up some space for serious students who actually want to learn something.

Hahahahaha. Ohh wait, you're serious?

Football is extremely profitable for colleges/universities. Hell the University of Texas made over $77 million in profit (103.8M revenue - $25.9M expenditures).

Just wishful thinking. I hate the almost religious devotion we give to sports in this country. I went to a poorly funded inner city high school. Most of the non-essential programs were running on fumes and in constant danger of being cut completely. We didn't really have shop, our drivers ed car sat decaying in the parking structure, art supplies weren't replaced as needed, but the football team always had new uniforms and top of the line equipment. It's all about priorities.

I just think things would be better if we separated sports from academics, or at least removed the requirement that athletes take and pass certain courses to remain on the team. I realize it's never going to happen.

ModernPrimitive01:last I heard the majority of college football programs cost more for the college than they bring in.

That's what I heard too. If it was so profitable all around, football would be something every college did. But then you have schools like Marquette and Georgetown and Creighton and Gonzaga and so on and so forth, schools that don't carry football teams despite clearly being big on athletics.

In fact, three of those four did at one point have a football team, but Creighton shuttered it in 1942, Gonzaga in 1941 and Marquette in 1960. More recently, Cal State Northridge shut down football in 2001, St. John's, Canisus and Fairfield in 2002, Siena in 2003, St. Peter's in 2006, La Salle in 2007, Iona in 2008, Northeastern and Hofstra in 2009, and East Tennessee State put theirs into hibernation in 2003 (they intend to revive it in 2015). Not the big-time names, but then, if they were the big-time names, they would have been making enough money to keep football going.

xalres:I just think things would be better if we separated sports from academics, or at least removed the requirement that athletes take and pass certain courses to remain on the team. I realize it's never going to happen.

Soccer's actually way ahead of you. There are schools, albeit not in the US, that lend their name and likeness to a soccer club and otherwise pretty much get out of the way and let the club be a sports team that recruits and signs and works the transfer market like everybody else. Pumas and Tigres of Mexico do that, for example, Hamilton Academical of Scotland, Bidvest Wits and University of Pretoria of South Africa.

And there is one school in the American soccer pyramid, come to think of it. BYU. They're in the fourth tier. But of course BYU's case is just one more result of the NCAA rules being completely farked up. The rule goes that players cannot be paid or play alongside professionals, but there's no rule that says they can't play against pros. So they pit the college kids against teams on a tier that includes a whole bunch of MLS minor-league clubs.

meanmutton:xalres: Just pay the goddamn players already. And set up special sports colleges to send them to. Stop perpetuating this farce that they're attending college for anything other than playing sports and free up some space for serious students who actually want to learn something.

They've been paying them for years. Where have you been? They call it a "Housing Allotment" and it works out to around $10,000 to $12,000 a year in cash payments (some schools pay more, some pay less, but it's indexed based on the cost of living in the area). Students can use it for whatever they want. There's no restrictions, no reporting requirements, they just get a check cut form the University (or, most likely, direct-deposited in their bank account). Bonus for the student-athlete is that they're not taxable.

And where do they live while they're spending that $10-12 grand you just made up on whatever they want?

I also was greatly impressed with the NCAA's lawyers who issued a statement generally saying it was just a big coincidence they decided to stop marketing their athletes this year, nothing to do with the lawsuit. Just a big ole coinky dink.

xalres:scottydoesntknow: xalres: Just pay the goddamn players already. And set up special sports colleges to send them to. Stop perpetuating this farce that they're attending college for anything other than playing sports and free up some space for serious students who actually want to learn something.

Hahahahaha. Ohh wait, you're serious?

Football is extremely profitable for colleges/universities. Hell the University of Texas made over $77 million in profit (103.8M revenue - $25.9M expenditures).

Just wishful thinking. I hate the almost religious devotion we give to sports in this country. I went to a poorly funded inner city high school. Most of the non-essential programs were running on fumes and in constant danger of being cut completely. We didn't really have shop, our drivers ed car sat decaying in the parking structure, art supplies weren't replaced as needed, but the football team always had new uniforms and top of the line equipment. It's all about priorities.

I just think things would be better if we separated sports from academics, or at least removed the requirement that athletes take and pass certain courses to remain on the team. I realize it's never going to happen.

It wouldn't change anything anyway. The new uniforms and equipment come from the team's boosters, not the school district. Move the team out of the school, and the booster club will go with it. My kids are on a private swim team, and I was able to raise $2500 just selling photos of the swimmers through the booster club. There's no way to infuse that money back into the school other than through the PTA or taxes.

So, work for a strong PTA. In our middle class neighborhood, the elementary school manages to raise $17000-$22000 per year through a silent auction. Add that to the other fundraisers, and we are able to hire part-time foreign language teachers, buy art supplies, PE supplies, etc. What sucks is that while we have a sister school on the east side, they get very little in comparison (from us and from their own PTA). There just aren't that many families on the east side willing or able to buy a donated crawfish boil party for $3000 at a silent auction.

The University of Texas has ads on the football scoreboard reminding alumni "Thanks for supporting the Horns, and remember that academics needs your support too." The money is mostly separate.

One, there's no $10-12k payouts in NCAA sports (unless you play football in the SEC...), but there *are* stipends that are given to student athletes per semester for living expenses. These stipends are small (~$1,000/semester--there was talk to increase it to $2000...) and I think we can agree are woefully out of alignment with the current reality of how much it costs to live.

Two, student athletes do get free room, board, tuition, meal plans, and books (only required texts, though). That worth varies with the school being attended, but it's valuation is sure as f**k greater than zero, so let's quit acting like these kids aren't getting anything for playing their sports. As someone that worked my ass off 40+ hours/week to put myself through school, I would have killed to have a shot at being a student athlete, and I would have more than appreciated the $100k I would have saved. And let's remember that these scholarships are the same, regardless of sport, and regardless of sex.

Three, yes, there are huge gross profits. But some of these schools (like Nebraska) do not take a dime of taxpayer money and run their Athletic Department as a non-profit. That means they don't make a dime, and (coaches salaries aside), the money goes directly back into the programs--not just football and basketball, but hockey, soccer, volleyball, bowling, tennis, swimming, rifle, rugby, and more. This is important, as it ties into point four...

Four, when we prattle on about 'killing the NCAA' and repeating this crap like a bunch of mindless f**ktards, you're killing the ability for kids that don't play a sport that isn't regurgitated ten times over on the EPSN highlight reel to go to school on scholarship and make something of themselves. For many of these kids, this is their only way to make something of themselves--they weren't born with a silver colonic tube up their ass, they don't have a rich relative to mooch from...they just have their work ethic to depend on, and last I checked, the American dream used to require a functioning work ethic to achieve. In our zest to punish, we'll be doing more harm to kids that typically do their thing away from the limelight of TV, and are student athletes for all the right reasons.

Five, Yes, the NCAA have been acting like a bunch of myopic, SEC and corruption-loving asshats that deserve to be pimp slapped with a bag of dicks...but that doesn't mean the whole system is garbage and that it should be scuttled. It just means we have dipshiats in one or more chairs that need to be jettisoned. The philosophy and reason for the NCAA is still valid, but until people are put in place to carry that mission out as it was intended, we're going to get the asshattery we've had on display lately (see Penn State, USC, Miami, the whole of the SEC).

As for answers to these issues...I have a few:

First, we require that all Athletic Departments become non-profit organizations that cannot take a dime of taxpayer money. Loans from the academic institutions are acceptable,but only for certain items (e.g. facilities and large scale construction, or new departments that cross the lines, like physical therapy/education departments that help both organizations). Otherwise, there is no real 'profit', per se, going forward, as it gets rolled back up into the funding of other sports.

Second, increase the stipend to a base of $3000/semester, and tie automatic increases with it to inflation and any other sensible economic indicator that looks at the cost of living on a macro level.

Third, require that students maintain a certain gradepoint average on core classes only related to their major, and that the student must take at least six credit hours/semester toward their declared major and maintain a 3.5 GPA or higher in those classes. Undeclared students will have to take a minimum of six credit hours/semester of core classes required by all disciplines at the school until declaring a major.

Students receive three strikes with regards to maintaining a 3.5 GPA--after three semesters of sub-3.5 GPA work in core classes, the student will have their scholarship revoked immediately and cannot be a student athlete any longer.

Four, bring back the death penalty, and the Athletic Directors of NCAA member institutions (that are not in the conference of the offending member) vote to implement it or remove it with a 2/3rds majority vote. All NCAA member institutions will be required to cast a ballot when called upon to do so. This would make it harder for individual and conference agendas to run roughshod over NCAA policy, and a 2/3rds majority vote would help prevent personal or professional retaliation by ADs down the road.

Anyway, this is just off the top of my head. I'm just tired of hearing the herp-a-derp about 'kill the NCAA' when the good the organization and student athletes accomplish far outweigh the corruption and lack of integrity a group of f**ktards employ.

What's important is how the NCAA is losing control of the very system is set up. Initially the NCAA was set up to protect the athletes because students were literally dying during games, and each school had it's own home brewed rules for sports. So, the NCAA was created with input on all the schools to be a governing body of Collegiate Sports to keep it fair and balanced.

What's happened in the last 130 years is phenomenal, and anymore, the schools aren't even bothering hiding they're not playing by the rules. Very soon, the SEC is going to break out to become it's own entity. As it is, they already own the NCAA Championship, like every year, or are at least in contention to own the title. It's the creme de la creme of College Football, so I don't see it taking very long for them to break away and set up their own league. Notre Dame isn't in any conference of the NCAA, but still competes under the banner... for now.

Simply put, the NCAA has been abusing it's power since the 1960's, and it's about time it gets a come uppance and the scools break away to form their own amateur leagues. Don't be surprised if the NFL starts donating millions of dollars to the NCAA to help them fight the schools, because it's in their best interest to have this built in farm league for talent. If the schools break away and form their own leagues, they'll have multiple sources for getting players, and money will get out of control, especially if the schools start paying athletes outright. They will literally be taking pay cuts to join the NFL

Incorrigible Astronaut:Is there really a chance that those lawsuits cold hold up in court? I mean, none of the NCAA-related games (including the old college basketball ones) ever used player names, and if I remember right they used pretty generic body types and faces. How much a chance would the former players have of winning?

I haven't played the series since 05-06, but I distinctly remember the characters looking close enough to the real deal. What's more, I don't know if you knew this but at least back then you could punch in the actual names of the starters on a team on your Dynasty mode, and the announcers would use the actual name instead of their number ("Johnson gets the sack!" as opposed to "#56 makes the sack!")

Incorrigible Astronaut:Is there really a chance that those lawsuits cold hold up in court? I mean, none of the NCAA-related games (including the old college basketball ones) ever used player names, and if I remember right they used pretty generic body types and faces. How much a chance would the former players have of winning?

As far back as I can recall the EA NCAA games (football & basketball) featured historic teams. And while the game never named the RB for the '56 Syracuse Orangemen, he wore #44, was 6-2, 230, had a 99 overall rating (with particularly high ranks for Strength, break tackle and durability) and was obviously Jim Brown. Part of the "sell" for the game was that you could play with Jim Brown's team (and other historic greats).

Why shouldn't they haven't to pay Jim Brown? Because several decades before there were even video games he had an athletic scholarship, and by accepting that scholarship he's licnesed his college likeness to the NCAA in perpetuity for any purpose? Because paying a 77 year old retired professional athlete will somehow retroactively taint his amateur status?

/And why would the '56 Orangemen be in the game *except* because it's cool to play Jim Brown? It wasn't a national champion - The team went 7-2 and lost its bowl game to TCU.

I didn't see enough of a difference to buy this year's version, but since it will be the last one from EA.

Yawn at the crusaders who say athletes don't get paid. They get a free education, free housing, free food, free women and booze wherever they go and perks out the ass on everything else imaginable, legal and not.

waterrockets:The University of Texas has ads on the football scoreboard reminding alumni "Thanks for supporting the Horns, and remember that academics needs your support too." The money is mostly separate.

Like anybody gives a shiat about academics. At my alma matter they're expanding the football stadium while cutting several degree paths.

One, there's no $10-12k payouts in NCAA sports (unless you play football in the SEC...), but there *are* stipends that are given to student athletes per semester for living expenses. These stipends are small (~$1,000/semester--there was talk to increase it to $2000...) and I think we can agree are woefully out of alignment with the current reality of how much it costs to live.

Two, student athletes do get free room, board, tuition, meal plans, and books (only required texts, though). That worth varies with the school being attended, but it's valuation is sure as f**k greater than zero, so let's quit acting like these kids aren't getting anything for playing their sports. As someone that worked my ass off 40+ hours/week to put myself through school, I would have killed to have a shot at being a student athlete, and I would have more than appreciated the $100k I would have saved. And let's remember that these scholarships are the same, regardless of sport, and regardless of sex.

Three, yes, there are huge gross profits. But some of these schools (like Nebraska) do not take a dime of taxpayer money and run their Athletic Department as a non-profit. That means they don't make a dime, and (coaches salaries aside), the money goes directly back into the programs--not just football and basketball, but hockey, soccer, volleyball, bowling, tennis, swimming, rifle, rugby, and more. This is important, as it ties into point four...

Four, when we prattle on about 'killing the NCAA' and repeating this crap like a bunch of mindless f**ktards, you're killing the ability for kids that don't play a sport that isn't regurgitated ten times over on the EPSN highlight reel to go to school on scholarship and make something of themselves. For many of these kids, this is their only way to make something of themselves--they weren't born with a silver colonic tube up their ass, they don't have a rich relative to mooch from...they just have their work ethic to ...

I agree with many of your suggestions, and the idea that the NCAA doesn't need to go away, it just needs to jettison some of the corrupt folks making bad decisions.

In addition to your suggestions, they should get rid of the contract to be able to use a players likeness in any media in perpetuity, because that's absurd.

meanmutton:xalres: Just pay the goddamn players already. And set up special sports colleges to send them to. Stop perpetuating this farce that they're attending college for anything other than playing sports and free up some space for serious students who actually want to learn something.

They've been paying them for years. Where have you been? They call it a "Housing Allotment" and it works out to around $10,000 to $12,000 a year in cash payments (some schools pay more, some pay less, but it's indexed based on the cost of living in the area). Students can use it for whatever they want. There's no restrictions, no reporting requirements, they just get a check cut form the University (or, most likely, direct-deposited in their bank account). Bonus for the student-athlete is that they're not taxable.

Wrong. Wrong...on many levels dead wrong.

1. Students who get room and board provided by the school (e.g., on campus dorm and cafeteria living) do not get a Housing Stipend...and BTW, it's not called a Housing Allotment...it's called a Housing Stipend...if you are going to talk out of your ass and continue to speak to things you know nothing about, could you at least do one 3-second GIS search to get the basic term right?

2. There TONS of restrictions and TONS of reporting requirements for an NCAA housing stipend. First, you have to qualify for the Universities' Housing Stipend program. For example, at my school, Freshman were not allowed to get a Housing Stipend and if your GPA dropped below a 2.5, you were not eligible for it either. Secondly, to get the Housing Stipend, you first had to secure an off-campus apartment with a "promise to rent" and that apartment had to register with the University and submit to a background and a BBB check as well as have documented Fair Renting non-discrimination policies, etc. Then you had to sign the lease and everyone on the lease, whether an NCAA athlete or not had to contractually agree to make full payments for the lease to remove the Univ. from any hook for unpaid rent. THEN, the University submitted the rent agreement to the Univ Compliance dept to ensure you were not getting a sweetheart deal on the rent that could be in violation of NCAA rules. THEN the University cut the landlord the check directly once the approvals where signed off on...you NEVER got the cash payment for any of it.

3. The Food Stipend was much easier (again, if you didn't get the meal plan)...you got a flat amount that was direct deposited into your Checking Account every other week minus the "team meals" your coaching staff indicated to the Univ that you were required to eat. Sure you could buy anything you want with the money...it's in your account, but typically, you bought food with it, since...uh, well...you kinda of get hungry and if you order take out and beer 3 times a week, you'll burn through the money by Wednesday.

4. You also got $400 a year for clothing and incidentals. For some schools this amount can be as much as $500 annually...other schools pay out zero...this is the one area where candidly most kids bought video games or just blew it on stupid stuff...but for many poor kids...they needed this money for things like getting their hair cut or jeans or underwear...trust me...I've never seen poor kids like kids on a college football team...one of my Freshman roommates owned two pairs of pants. TWO, one pair of jeans, one pair of khakis, that's it. People always wondered why he wore team sweats and shorts 7 days a week, it was because the dude had basically no clothing...he used most of his $400 to buy a suit, shirt, dress socks and dress shoes for the road trips and the rest of underwear and socks, etc.

5. There is also the SA Opportunity Fund and the Special Assistance Fund...which is for one-off special monetary needs for really poor kids can ask for special disbursements like, the ability to fly home for Xmas if home is many States away and your family can't afford the airfare, the ability to pay for a special Field Trip associated with one's Major, etc...but these are through the Compliance office and the paperwork and rules for them are ridiculous.

6. And there are Pell Grants and other grants that student athletes can get, but technically any student can also apply for based on need, etc.

BTW, you also cannot work during the off-season while school is in session to make extra money on the side AND if you want to get a job in the Summer months, it has to be approved by the Compliance office who can deny the job for any reason and you have ZERO recourse outside of suing the University, which NEVER happens.

Oh, and did I mention that if you get a life-long physical injury as a result of playing for your school, that once you stop playing the University isn't on the hook for one dollar of care because you can't file for Workmen's Comp or Disability...cause you aren't an Employee, you are a Student-Athlete, even though your football team brought in MILLIONS for the University and your Defense Coordinator made $450K a year and your position coach made $185K a year.

This much could easily be done by 40 full-time employees with an annual operating budget in the mid-seven figures. If you could live with cognitive dissonances on the order of, say, certain conferences having slightly different rules about overtime in field hockey, you could get away with a lot less. But that's about a tenth of the NCAA's current employees (and less than 1% of its actual budget), and that's not counting the army of lawyers, lobbyists, and advertising agencies it has working for it.

That's because the NCAA has an entirely different purpose: the perpetuation of the NCAA. Every fantastically shiatty thing the NCAA does, and it does plenty, is in direct service to that goal. Why do they hire detectives to make stalk third-stringers on D-II basketball teams who they think might be getting free sodas at the stadium concession stands? Because the product they're selling is pure uncut "amateur athleticism." Why don't they care if coaches bring players on to teams who never play and whose only job is to get a 4.0 to bring up the team average? Because all that matters is being able to say they're helping to improve graduation rates. Why do they let coaches bar their own former players from competition when they transfer? Because that's part of the price that coaches set for playing along. Why don't they even ask players if they want their names and faces slapped on video games? Because there's a lot of money in video games. Ah, but the NCAA is a non-profit organization. Why do they care about money? Because it takes money to accomplish their single, overriding priority--to perpetuate the NCAA.

It didn't have to be this way, but they are waaaaaaaaaaaay past the tipping point. At some point, maybe not for another hundred years, something catalytic is going to happen and Congress will nuke it from orbit. Until then, everything will stay farked.

ModernPrimitive01:meanmutton: scottydoesntknow: xalres: Just pay the goddamn players already. And set up special sports colleges to send them to. Stop perpetuating this farce that they're attending college for anything other than playing sports and free up some space for serious students who actually want to learn something.

Hahahahaha. Ohh wait, you're serious?

Football is extremely profitable for colleges/universities. Hell the University of Texas made over $77 million in profit (103.8M revenue - $25.9M expenditures).

Can you tell me what the profit margin was for, say, the bottom half Div 1 FBS football programs? Or bottom 85 or so Div1 FBS athletic programs were?

last I heard the majority of college football programs cost more for the college than they bring in.

I worked in two different AD when I was going to grad school and the fact of the matter is that the NCAA and the ADs are set up to funnel as much revenue as possible that they make, to other University revenue streams to perpetuate this myth that ADepts. don't make money...when ANYONE who has worked in a big money conference knows this is 100% bullshiat.

Here are two tangible, actual examples where I've changed the names of the schools that I directly know about:

1) If UCLA has an Alumni fundraiser tied to a rivalry game with USC and they make a hypothetical $10 million in increase alumni contributions at the fundraiser AT THAT GAME...do you know how much the Athletic Department counts towards revenue? Zero. Everyone knows that $10M is directly attributed to that athletic contest, but Fundraising takes 100% revenue credit for it.

2) If Maryland sings a license deal with Capital One and has a special "Maryland Athletics" Credit Card where Maryland gets $500 every time some one signs up for the card and they put up "sign up booths" at basketball and football games and Maryland gets $1.2M in revenue from Capital One for the deal...do you know much the ADept counts as AD-derived revenue when 99% of the people who signed up for the card did so at Basketball and Football games? Zero. Another group took 100% revenue credit for it.

The NCAA wants to keep their "Student-Athletes aren't employees" exemption for as long as possible and creating and perpetuating a myth that the "vast majority of Athletic Departments lose money" is part of that carefully constructed story of bullshiat.

I'm suprised not more people are in here cheering. ANYTHING that goes bad for EA is good news in my book... especially something that hurts their sports division, which is what they use to prop up all their horrid DRM-ridden titles.

As for sports... couldn't care less, don't watch em. Only cared about NFL football cause my father was a giant Cowboys fan back in the Emmit-Irving-Aikman days. When those days ended, I stopped giving a fark.